“Owners are seeking out pet products which theyidentify with,” said Melanie Felgate, senior consumer an-alyst for GlobalData. “For example, if a pet owner’s con-sumption habits feature lots of snacks, they will buy lots ofsnacking treats for their animal, or if the owner eats onlygluten-free food, the same goes for their furry friend.”Considering two-thirds of consumers globally nowown a pet, according to GlobalData’s 2016 Q4 survey,brands must respond to the evolving lifestyle choices andhabits of pet owners to capitalize on the market.Pet snacking, for example, presents a key opportu-nity for pet food brands, saidGlobalData officials. Humansno longer rely on the tradition-al three meals a day, with 72percent snacking at least oc-casionally between meals, ac-cording to GlobalData’s 2015Q4 global consumer survey.This sentiment rises to 82 per-cent among pet owners specifi-cally, with the main motivationto snack cited as being to treator reward oneself.“Snacking habits are beingpassed on, as owners look totreat their pets while also in-dulging themselves,” Felgatesaid. “Given snacking levelsvary by day-part, there is achance to broaden consump-tion occasions by targetingpet snacks towards specifictimes of day. Breakfast biscuitsexplicitly target morning con-sumption, for example; a con-cept which could also workin the pet food space to targetmorning dog walks.”Another humanized trendidentified by GlobalData isclean eating. The clean move-ment is growing as consumersseek natural products that arefree from artificial ingredients,chemicals and toxins. Withalmost half of pet owners sur-veyed by GlobalData in Q12017 highly attentive to theingredients used in pet prod-ucts, an opportunity exists forbrands to utilize clean mes-saging and cues to capitalizeon the trend, and address theneeds of growing numbers ofconsumers seeking a cleanerlifestyle for themselves andtheir pets.“Pet food brands are mov-ing into the clean space byusing natural ingredients, pro-moting the use of single pro-tein sources and using moreplant-based ingredients in for-mulations,” Felgate said.The report was built usingdata and information sourcedfrom proprietary databases,primary and secondary re-search, and in-house analysisconducted by GlobalData’steam of industry experts.Pet Product News International August 2017